


every night, i live and die

by askynote



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Insight, M/M, Post-Canon, and some fluff because it's me, lots of ronan lynch feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 00:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13224213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askynote/pseuds/askynote
Summary: There’s the Ronan before, and the Ronan after, and the Ronan of now.The biggest difference is that he starts healing.





	every night, i live and die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SubtextEquals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubtextEquals/gifts).



> Gift for @garshil, written for TRC Exchange 2017.
> 
> So this is Ronan/Adam, platonic Ronan and Blue, platonic Ronan and Gansey. And a weird attempt of "Ronan (and Opal) being "adopted" by Maura and he and Blue have interesting thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and fail at pretending they're not best friends, late nights at Monmouth, Ronan & Gansey cleaning Monmouth before Niall's death." And it's actually a new year's eve dinner than a Christmas one lol hope you like it <3
> 
> Title comes from 'Perfect Places' by Lorde.

His mom reads him stories of kings and queens, witches and wizards, the hero saving the day and living happily ever after with the one they love. In them, magic is tangible and loud and extraordinary. Sometimes it’s an enemy, a vile thing people are afraid of. Sometimes it’s an ally, wonderful and beautiful, a miracle maker. 

Ronan is amazed either way and holds those stories close to his heart. 

“I wish it was like that all over the world,” he says one night after his mom had closed the book and tugged him to bed. “Magic.”

His mom laughs, not mocking but delighted. “But it is, my love.”

Ronan furrows his brows, crossing his arms over his chest. “I haven’t seen it.”

Her mom laughs again, this time fondly. “Of course you have. It’s everywhere,” she says and sits at the edge of the bed, her hand reaching out to tuck a dark curl behind his ear. “Every morning when the sun comes out and touches the grass, making it a bright shade of gold. And every spring when the flowers blossom and butterflies come back from their journey. It’s in rainbows and shooting stars. It’s in the laughter of a child, and in that first time you hold hands with the one your heart beats faster for.”

_ Yuck _ , Ronan thinks of saying, knowing it would come out fake. That’s a word the other boys of his class use when they talk about kissing or love, and he wonders, at times, if he acted like them, he would understand them. But he realizes he doesn’t really care. Ronan is not them, and he doesn’t like to pretend, so that’s why he bites his tongue and lets the thought go. 

Instead, he soaks his mom’s words in and tries to keep the frustration out of his voice and his features. He doesn’t want to upset her. “But that’s just—normal.”

_ Not like here _ , he doesn’t say, _ Not like what Dad can do.  _ Because Ronan pays attention, and he has  _ seen _ things, even if his mind can’t wrap around them. He knows his father isn’t like everyone else. 

His mom flicks his nose. “It might not be what you expect, but it doesn’t mean it’s no there. You just have to look a little closer.”

She kisses his forehead and turns off his lamp. 

Ronan is left in the dark and his eyes close.

 

* * *

(The thing about magic is that he has always seen its appeal, even before knowing how deeply connected he was to it. There’s that something _ more _ he has been achingly hoping for).

 

* * *

Ronan’s fourteen years old when he sees his father dreaming of blood and blue petals. 

And it’s like that when he finally,  _ finally _ , understands.

He is asked to keep the secret, and Ronan does so, not because he likes secrets, but because it’s his father, and if he says no one can know, then no one can know.

But the possibilities have expanded. Suddenly everything seems wider.

 

* * *

Meeting Gansey is pretty much meant to happen, it’s as much as a casualty as it is fate, though, the meeting itself is as mundane and sluggish as any other typical day of school. They happened to sit next to each other, and perhaps, Gansey had sensed that new eerie air that tends to surround Ronan, one made of magic and dreams. And perhaps Ronan had seen that something else too, different and intriguing.

It’s the kind of friendship that just clicks, easy and strong. 

One day, after they moved a couch, a refrigerator and a pool table to the second story of Monmouth Manufacturing, they lie on the floor, Ronan facing the high ceiling, and Gansey with his legs crossed, working on a miniature version of Henrietta, which currently only has lots of grass and some trees. Apparently, Gansey is the kind of guy who would buy an old forgotten warehouse to live on. Ronan is not in the least surprised.

“What’s the point of all this?” Ronan asks.

Gansey looks up from the cardboard he will later turn into a whole neighborhood. “What?”

Ronan does a lazy motion with one of his hands, gesturing at everything around them. At the leather bound journal, at large maps, at the books scattered on the floor. 

“Oh. It’s a very long story. Or well maybe not, it’s more what came after...”

Ronan raises an eyebrow, and Gansey tells him all. 

There’s this: the death resurrecting and old legends coming true, ley lines and sleeping kings waiting to rise again. 

Magic exists beyond the Barns. The outside world has never seemed so great, so limitless.

 

* * *

But all stories have their twists. That part where the audience gets engaged, and the main character goes through living hell. 

If his life were a story, it would start like this:

Once upon a time, Ronan Lynch was just one of the other three princes living in his strange little kingdom, surrounded by love and warmth. 

Once upon a time, Ronan Lynch wasn’t all bark and spikes, burning everything that stood in his way. 

Once upon a time, his father was alive, and his mother was awake. Once upon a time, the Lynch brothers weren’t that much of a dysfunctional mess. 

But then Ronan found his father lying on the ground, bleeding, dead, dead, dead. 

And his life shattered, easily as glass falling to the floor.

 

* * *

“Why are you letting them do this?” His voice is raw, despite the fact that he hadn’t said a word all day. His hand is numb, even if his nails keep digging into his skin, tight in a fist. 

“There's nothing  _ I  _ can do, Ronan. It’s his will. Not my goddamn fault he wrote it that way,” Declan says, his tone sharp with pretense. Red rims his eyes with subtlety, but Ronan can notice them even in the dim light. His shoulders are slumped with tiredness. It's the first time he looks older than he actually is.

It’s raining outside, lighting and thunder hitting the Barns as if they were making up for the lost years. Niall Lynch was good at keeping simple bad stuff from their home—at least, stuff that didn’t come from his head—but in the end, nothing of that mattered. He couldn’t keep the most dangerous threat out of their lives.

Ronan is full of anger, and since he doesn’t know where,  _ who _ , to target it, he just lets it spill, dark and red like his father’s blood.

 

* * *

There’s this old photo framed with wood and hung up on the wall of the hallway. A mother with a smile of sunrise, a father, tall and proud, and their children. The oldest one, clean and polished, perfect pose. The middle one eyes glinting with mischief, radiating a sort of playfulness. The youngest one of the two, a toothless smile, sweet and kind. 

Ronan stares at it before they leave their home forever.

He has the urge to throw it to the flames.

 

* * *

He hates the change and hates how life likes to mock him, because after his father’s death—murder, it was a murder—it’s change, after change, snowballing until it hits Ronan on the face.

He moves to Monmouth Factory, and his brothers move to Aglionby’s dorms. His dreams become dangerous and dark; he longs for the time he used to wake up clutching bright roses. He races, and drinks, and fights, as if it could help him to find relief from the pain weighing down his chest, but all it does is to create a smoke barrier to keep the demons away, which as soon as it dissipates, leaves him as lost as he was before. He stands in front of the mirror and his reflection shows him a boy with dark circles under his eyes, fresh ink creeping up to his neck. 

It’s like a competition with the world. Let’s see who changes the most. And well, Ronan has always hated losing.

 

* * *

He becomes a puzzle, and gives some pieces to the people who matter and let them figure out the rest.

He becomes a puzzle even to himself and gets to a point where he gets lost. It’s just a never-ending tunnel, where he doesn’t seem to find the light.

 

* * *

It’s a dull fall when Adam comes to their life, then it’s Noah, then it’s Blue.

He doesn’t like any of them at first—well, except Noah, because he’s Noah.  

Their lives intertwine nevertheless. 

After all, they are all special parts of something bigger.

 

* * *

What comes next is that he starts to want answers, and want, and want. 

(It takes some time, but he gets them.

And later, he gets his home back

The light at the end of the tunnel shows up).

 

* * *

“It looks like you’re going to drop dead at any moment.”

He receives only a dismissal grunt in response. He sighs loudly, closing his eyes and pressing pause to his music to hear the turning pages and the slight murmur of Adam memorizing the answers to their upcoming test. 

He doesn’t need to see him to have the picture of Adam furrowing his dusty eyebrows, and chewing the cap of his pen, burning vividly in his mind. 

He remembers Dream Adam’s voice,  _ Scio quid hoc est,  _ his fingers slowly tracing his tattoo, lighting on fire his skin. 

Ronan opens his eyes and turns the volume up, his earphones blaring out the sound in an attempt to shove that memory as far away as possible. 

He notices Adam fell asleep at his desk, his face resting on top of his notes. Ronan watches the steady movement of his chest before he stands up. 

He pokes Adam’s cheek until he wakes up. 

Adam blinks blearily. 

Ronan pokes him again, this time on the shoulder. “Go to bed, you loser.”

Adam rubs his eyes. The sight tugs at his chest with an strange but lately familiar feeling. 

_ I know what this is, _ Dream Adam had said.

And that’s another thing he wants. After spending so much time alone with his secrets, he  _ does _ want to be seen, He does want to be understood. 

(He leaves more and more pieces for them, for  _ Adam _ to find. And one day, he might be able to have the puzzle complete).

 

* * *

Here is the thing: something, somehow, always stays the same, maybe not in the way you would imagine, maybe it’s just hidden, or it takes a little more of work to find it again, but it does. 

And there’s this: the Ronan before and after his father’s death. Gansey could probably pinpoint each one of the changes. You could put two photos side by side, the before and after, spread on a table and make people spot the differences. 

_ Easy _ , they would say.  _ These are two completely different people. _

But they would be wrong. 

Because Ronan has never stopped caring about the ones he loves. He hasn’t stopped being that child who played with mice with his little brother. He hasn’t stopped being that boy who loved to help his mother in the garden. 

There’s the Ronan before, and the Ronan after, and the Ronan of now. 

The biggest difference is that he starts healing.

 

* * *

“You are an asshole!” Blue shrieks, reaching for a dishcloth to clean the gravy stripes Ronan drew on her forehead, and beneath her eyes..

“It makes you look tougher. With your size, you need it.”

Blue glares at him, not exactly angry, just the usual exasperation you get when dealing with a Lynch.

Then, Blue smirks, and in a quick motion sprays whipped cream all over his face. 

“It makes you look softer. With your size you need it.”

Ronan is about to turn this into an ugly, messy food fight when Blue’s mom says from the dining room, “Can you two children stop playing, and help bring the food to the table?”

He hears Blue murmur, “Not a child” while she grabs the casserole of mashed potatoes. 

He also hears, Opal’s voice from the hallway, almost yelling, “Adam! You’re here!”

A laugh, and, “You saw me just an hour ago, Opal.”

Ronan manages to get some whipped cream off him and gets it on Blue’s arm. She kicks his shin before she leaves. 

He’s washing off the cream as two arms envelope his waist. He turns around, still dripping wet.

Adam smiles and grabs a paper towel from the counter to wipe Ronan’s face. “Looks like you were having fun.”

“Oh, tons,” and kisses, short but sweet. “Did you get them?”

“Yeah. Henry and Gansey are hiding them so Opal doesn’t see them before dinner.”

Ronan hums, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Good call.”

This time when he brings their lips together, they linger. Adam pulls him close, still holding him by the waist. Ronan buries his hands in Adam’s hair, pulling a pleased sound out of him, and—

“The food is going to get cold!”

They jump apart, without letting go of each other. Adam hides his face on Ronan’s shoulder, and Ronan sees the lightly pink tinting his ears. Ronan decides to ignore his own flushed face. 

“We should ditch them,” he says.

“Mmm.” Warm breath tickles his throat. “Maybe later. I’m hungry.”

“I can buy you food.”

Adam laughs, and oh, one day Ronan will dream up an item to keep that laugh guarded and secured. 

Adam laces their fingers and guides them to their family.

 

* * *

 

The sky paints red, and pink, and purple, and blue. 

Gansey nudges his shoulder as Blue and Opal light the fireworks. 

“Any resolutions this year?” he asks. 

Under the lights Adam is painfully beautiful—a sudden thrill runs through his spine knowing Ronan can call him his. Opal is delighted and unafraid. Blue laughs about something Henry says and puts her arms around Adam and him. 

( _ I understand now, mom,  _ Ronan wishes he could tell her. He can only hope she can see him from wherever she is,  _ I can see it everywhere _ ).

To Gansey, he tells him, “Just to live.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year <3


End file.
